As the alternative energy gains popularity, the use of wind for generating electricity also attracts attention. The wind-based electricity-generation is to use the windmill to transform the wind energy into the rotational dynamics, and then use a generator module to transform the mechanical energy into electrical energy. This type of generator has a better capacity. However, the disadvantages are the low efficiency, large size, complex structure and high manufacturing cost.
Piezoelectric material, such as Lead Zirconate-titanate (PZT), BaTiO3, quartz, ZnO, or other special chemical compounds (PVDF), and so on, is a material that is able to generate electric charge when the material is deformed by external forces, called Piezoelectric Effect, so that the mechanical energy can be transformed into electrical energy. As the rapid development in applications, some piezoelectric materials can be made into any special forms, such as a thin foil or fiber. Therefore, piezoelectric materials are made into transducers in some power-transformation devices to utilize the environmental forces, such as tide, wind, turbine, and so on, to impact the transducer for harvesting renewable energy into electrical energy. However, the efficiency has been poor so far.
It is therefore imperative to devise an aerodynamic vibration power-generation device with piezoelectric transducer embedded inside a blade to improve the power generation capability.